It may now be proper to state the motives which have again induced me
publicly to address you, and to inform you what course it is my
intention to pursue; and as I have no standing in the church, and am
aloof from those scenes which must sometimes give rise to asperities,
even in the bosom of meekness, have no personal acquaintance with you,
and have been taught to respect your private character, I enter upon the
subject, uninfluenced by many of the passions and prejudices which sway
and control the opinions of man. But although not in membership, I feel
a deep interest in the Society of Friends, and while I am without that
sectarian spirit, which in the narrow breasts of some individuals,
confines all true worship to a particular description of people, (and
which I am happy in believing is no part of a quaker's faith;) long
observation has convinced me, that there is no society whose principles
and discipline are more eminently successful in inculcating the moral
doctrines of christianity, and there is none whose religious tenets are
more in conformity with my own ideas of true spiritual worship.
I have perused your religious discourses with some attention, and as
they appear to me to be in a style, seldom, if ever before, heard in the
meetings of the Society of Friends; are abounding in terms which if not
rightly understood may lead into great error, and with propositions,
which, in the conclusions that may be drawn from them, may be
destructive to religion, I thought I should not be unprofitably employed
in endeavouring to separate your principles from the mass of expletives
and allusions, in which they are enveloped; to discover the true object
which you have in view, and to show the inconsistencies in which you
have involved yourself by your attempts to define inscrutable things:
and if I should sometimes be thought to indulge in language unsuitable
to the solemnity of the subject, my only excuse can be, that when you
occasionally favour your auditors with a display of your reasoning
powers, there is such a neglect of all order in your arrangement, and
such metaphorical confusion in your ideas, that when you arrive at your
usual conclusion, "now how plain this is," the effect is so comic that
it would extort a smile from gravity itself.
In the examination of the doctrines of every christian teacher, the
first and most essential point, is their conformity to the Scriptures;
but as your many deviations from them have been shown with sufficient
clearness in a pamphlet lately published, I shall not enter into the
subject generally, although I may occasionally refer to them. Neither do
I propose to enter upon an analysis of each particular discourse, for
they are mixed up of so many heterogeneous materials, are so diversified
in their objects, and so devious in their courses, that the end I have
in view will perhaps be best answered, by referring only to such topics,
as in their consequences, are of most importance.
In the first discourse in the volume now before me, which was delivered
at Friends' meeting house in Mulberry street, your principal objects
appear to be, to depreciate the value of the Scriptures, and to disprove
the account of the miraculous birth of our Saviour. On the first subject
it may hereafter be proper to make some observations; to the latter I
shall now give my attention.
After several allusions to the birth of our Saviour, you come forward
and explicitly state your own belief; and unlike those who have preceded
you in this path, and who have endeavoured to destroy our faith in the
miracle, by arguments drawn from the Scriptures, you take a shorter
road, and declare _it is impossible_.
You say "By the analogy of reason, _spirit cannot beget a material
body,_ because the thing begotten, must be of the same nature with its
father. _Spirit cannot beget any thing but spirit, it cannot beget flesh
and blood._ No, my friends, it is impossible."[5]
Footnote 5:
See discourse delivered at Friends' meeting house, in Mulberry street,
page 11.
I have in a former letter referred to this assertion, and had you
confirmed the opinion which I then intimated, that it was a hasty
expression, and uttered without your perceiving its tendency, I should
not again allude to the subject. But you found yourself seated between
the horns of a dilemma. If you admitted it was an inconsiderate
expression, you abandoned your high claim to inspiration; and if you
re-affirmed it, in its obvious meaning, it would be an adoption of
principles which I sincerely hope you do not entertain; and you have
endeavoured to escape by an explanation which, although it narrows the
meaning, does not relieve it from the stain of impiety; and is a proof,
(if any further proof is wanting,) that such a course cannot proceed
from the inspirations of the spirit of truth.
You say, that in denying the power of the spirit to _beget_, you did not
mean to question the power to _create_. To limit is to destroy the
omnipotency of the Creator; and when we see such a creature as man,
presuming to scan His power and determine what He can, or cannot do, the
feelings which its profanity would otherwise occasion, are lost in our
astonishment at its arrogance and presumption. But you have announced
your opinion not only as sanctioned by divine inspiration, but as being
according to "the true analogy of reason," and yet, taken with your
subsequent explanation, it is enveloped in absurdity. In admitting the
power to create, you have destroyed your own argument; for you cannot
suppose that there was an individual present in the meeting, so grossly
dull as to believe that when the prophecy was accomplished in the birth
of our Saviour, it was by the means which your explanation points to; or
that it was other than a miraculous intervention of that merciful Being,
who in his unlimited power and inscrutable wisdom, has chosen his own
way in directing us to a knowledge of those truths which the gospel
unfolds. And if we assent to your doctrine in the restricted sense in
which you say you intended the word _beget_ to be understood; we must
believe there are sexes in spirit, and that it can only be produced by a
corporeal union of incorporeal beings.
Here is no proof of your ability to draw conclusions from the _analogy
of reason_, but it is a striking illustration of the wisdom of the
counsel, "not to multiply words without knowledge."
A very keen and accurate observer of the foibles and infirmities of man
remarks, "it would be well, if people would not lay so much weight on
_their own reason_ in matters of religion, as to think every thing
impossible and absurd, which they cannot conceive: how often do we
contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives?
_Reason_ itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man
is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests,
his passions, and his vices."[6]
Footnote 6:
Swift.
If, as I truly believe, the christian religion is intended to subdue the
wanderings of the imagination, and bring the mind into a humble
dependance on our Creator, it seems necessarily to follow, that we ought
to be anxiously careful to prevent its being drawn into a too great
fondness for enquiries into unsearchable things. In the course of my
reading, I have lately perused the prayer of a very learned man,[7]
which, for its rational and fervent piety, must be instructive to all,
and in a particular manner to those who are _our teachers_. It is the
prayer of one whose writings will be read with instruction and delight
as long as our language endures; whose intellectual faculties were of
the highest order, and who was sufficiently sensible of his superiority,
when compared with most other men: yet, when in solitude and private
worship, he looked beyond all sublunary things, and contemplated the
immensurable distance between the wisdom of man and his Creator, with
deep prostration of mind he prayed "Oh, Lord, my maker and protector,
who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation,
enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as
may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast
required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course
of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts
are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways: and while it shall please
thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little
to be known; teach me by thy holy spirit, to withdraw my mind from
unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious,
and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which
thou hast imparted, let me serve thee with active zeal and humble
confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the
soul which Thou receivest, shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant
this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake."
Footnote 7:
Dr. Johnson.
And that it is with minds thus disciplined, that all ought to be
prepared for prayer, and that in this spirit alone, can the preacher
awaken the mind to true worship, are truths which few professors of the
christian name, and none who believe in the doctrines of Friends, can
doubt.